Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Cripes, people. Calm down. Just breath a little bit.

There seems to be a bit of a controversy here. Well, this is the blogosphere, so even if there isn’t one, we’ll make one.

Apparently, the uproar is all because of a Powerpoint slide, though that isn’t completely the case.

In particular, this powerpoint slide (click for bigness):

This slide was part of a presentation made by Vivendi Games (parent company of Blizzard) to Wall Street investors. Now, apparently, this is all well an good, except F13.net quoted a friend who heard it from a Vivendi Rep at said presentation: “All Blizzard Franchises will become MMOG’s.” In his original article, Schild’s erroneously cited Blizzard as saying this… then later clarified a bit since the internet kind of blew up in his face with demands like, “What is your source?”

He claims to have had a Q&A with a Vivendi Rep, as opposed to just hyperbolizing the afore-mentioned slide, as some outlets (and Blizzard) are claiming right now.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter why he made his bold statement. It doesn’t even really matter if it’s true or not.

All that matters is that Vivendi Games is pretty much a French version of EA. The only difference is that they pay their executives in euros and they generally don’t piss people off by purchasing 5-year exclusivity deals with the NFL. Blizzard is completely owned by Vivendi Universal Games (VUG). And I mean 0WN3D in every possible sense of the word.

When it comes down to it, who cares what Rob Pardo said? VUG is part of a huge media conglomerate. Not too dissimilar from the kind of entity that performed such evils as releasing Goldeneye: Rogue Agent and cancelling Firefly. If VUG believes that it can make PILES OF CASH from World of Starcraft and World of Diablo, guess what! They will make World of Starcraft and World of Diablo. End of discussion.

And of course, Blizzard is going to deny anything of the sort, because they will look like big corporate puppets if it’s true (which we all know they are, anyway). I just find the entire situation hilarious. For crying out loud, some of the most popular TV broadcasts in South Korea are Starcraft championships. You really think Vivendi is going to see a big huge pile of money and say, “We are going to ignore that.”

Bottom line: F13 is probably telling the truth. Blizzard is a bunch of corporate shills. World of Starcraft might be fun, and you are all going to buy it (especially if you are from South Korea).

Now, please, stop whining and let’s get back to the really important stuff, like whether Britney and K-Fed are really over for good! OH NOES!